Murder and a Mystery
by Miss Danny
Summary: (All Human) Max finds herself in a small town called Shipshewana after her aunt died. She now owns a small quilting shop but when they find a murder its up to Fang Max and their friends to solve it. But will they in time to save their friend? REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!
1. Chapter 1

**Ok! I will be using Amish words in this book so first I will tell you what they mean. **

Ack – oh

Aenti – aunt

Boppli – baby

Bopplin – babies

Bruder – brother

Daadi – grandfather, informal

Daed – father

Danki – thank you

Dat – dad

Dietsch – Pennsylvania Dutch

Dochder – daughter

Dochdern – daughters

Eck – corner

Englischer – non Amish person

Fraa – wife

Freinden – friends

Gelassenheit – calmness composure

Gern Gschehne – your welcome

Gotte wille – gods will

Grandkinner – grand children

Grossdaddi – grandfather

Grossdochdern – granddaughters

Grossmammi – grandmother

Gudemariye – good morning

Gut – good

In lieb – in love

Kaffi – coffee

Kapp – prayer covering

Kind – child

Kinner – children

Mamm – mom

Mammi – grandmother informal

Naerfich – nervous

Narrisch – crazy

Onkel – uncle

Ordnung – set of rules for amish living

Rumspringa – running around time before a young amish person has officially joined the church, provides a bridge between childhood and adulthood

Schweschder – sister

Was iss letz – what's wrong

Wunderbar – wonderful

Ya – yes

**Ok that's all of them. You might need to look at this again if you don't understand a word or two. XD it took me a while to get them right.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Dear ppls reading this. I have never done this before so bare with me!**

Shipshewana, Indiana. Late October.

" less than two weeks until the Wedding." Lily Nape glanced once at Mary, then focused again on the dirt lane, her horse Pepper, and guiding the buggy down the rutted path.

On both sides of them, fields of fall corn rose, golden and plump, ready for harvest. They shaded the lane so the midmorning sun broke through in a slatted fashion, as if it were winking at them.

Jake and Amy our children spoke in hushed tones from the back seat caught up in some game that children play. It never failed to amaze Lily how they managed to find amusement in the smallest things.

Yesterday it had been twisting stalks of corn stalks into absurd things like hearts and shapes like that.

When Mary didn't comment Lily looked at her friend again. Mary had been married before so a handsome young man named Shane but two teens had hidden a car in their old barn and when Shane had gone to see what the noise was they ran him over. It was an accident but Mary still had a hard time with it even if it was over 5 years ago. Mary's hands clutched a casserole bowl firmly but she managed a radiant smile. "_Ya_. Less than two weeks. One part of me wishes it were tomorrow. That I could wake up and we would be living our life together as man and wife"

"And the other part?" I say with a small smile her way.

"And the other part agrees with Toby. There's still much to do before he moves into my home. We're not ready and as much as I'd like to wish the days away, I know it's all a part of the season and something I won't want to forget. Less than two weeks. I should be grateful for each day, as toby reminds me."

Lily smiled as she began circling the small pond at the far end of Toby and his cousin Eds place – actually it was their _grossdaddi'_s place but they'd been farming it for the last 7 years. "Toby has become quite industrious since he asked you to marry him. He has always been a hard worker but in the last few months it's as if he's a man on a mission. He wants everything to be perfect."

"I know that's why I wanted to bring them dinner. Im not sure they eats well with eds cooking." Mary smiled at her last comment.

Lily laughed causing both the children to pop up and hang over the front seat. "I have no doubts they will be glad you brought them dinner. They dont strike me as a _wunderbar_ cooks."

Mary reached out a touched my arm. "can you stop the buggy? Just for a moment?"

I followed her gaze to where some tall poppy's waved in the afternoon breeze next to the shore of the pond. I smiled and pulled pepper to a stop. "sure take as long as you want."

Mary grinned hopping from the buggy and raced over to the flowers and started gently picking them. The children bounced up and down trying to get out first so they could go with mary. Lily smiled helping them out and stood next to pepper watching them but her attention went to pepper who was acting funny. Pepper was prancing in place and snorting. Lily looked around. Was there a snake or something? She spun around when she heard mary scream at the top of her lunges and rushed over. "Mary whats wrong!?" she stoped when she saw what was floating in the pond. A Dead girl was floating face down in the pond.

**I hope you like my first real chapter! Fang and max will come in soon so don't worry! :D **


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks for reading! Please review and ill update as fast as I can! **

**POV Max**

Maximum Harper clomped down the stairs from her apartment to her quilt shop, tugging at her long plain dark green dress with one hand and readjusting the tie to her apron with the other. Oh how rick would laugh to see her now. He was died in a car wreck shortly after we got married but that was 7 years ago now. There were lots of things that her husband would be amused to know about her new life. There wasn't a single day since he died that she didn't miss him, didn't wish he were here with here with her. This though… oh he would laugh about the dress.

She wanted to reach up and scratch under the _kapp_ on her head but it had taken so long to corral her shoulder-length dark hair underneath the white bonnet she didn't want to displace any of it. When she turned the corn into the shops main room her yellow lab calvin let out a whine and placed his head on his paws.

Callie the seventeen year old Amish girl who worked for her full time now and was currently helping her stock dissolved into a fit of giggles. "what are you laughing at?" Max spun in a circle. "don't I look exactly like you?"

"no." Callie sat on the stool behind the counter to keep from falling over with her laughter. "You do not look like me at all!"

Max sighs frustrated. "but I pinned the dress right"

"_ya"_

"and I put the apron on right though I don't know how you manage to tie it in the back just so. I had the hardest time doing that."

"the tie is fine" Callie leans on the counter a grin on her face.

"It's the _kapp_, isn't it? My hair isn't long like yours but it still doesn't want to stay in." She moved to a mirror the ran a lot the top of a fabric display. As she suspected her dark hair had started to escape from various corners under the _kapp_. She looked nothing like the neat Amish women who were her friends.

She looked at what she was: an imposter. "I don't think the _kapp_ or the clothing is the problem max." callie propped her chin on her hand and studied her employer. "its not our clothing that make us amish. Its obvious your only pretending – an _Englischer _in plain clothing."

"fix me." Max's hands flapped at her sides. "I have to sneak into store. To do that I need to look plain."

"why?" callie looked at me with a frown.

"because." I stated.

"I like how you normally dress. Why cant you look _englisch_?

"because she is suspicious of all _englischers"_

"Mrs. Knap is suspicious of everyone Max. _Englisch _or Amish." Callie hoped off the stool and joined Max in front of the narrow mirror. "you look a bit like her. Mrs. Knap is exactly your size only much older."

"she's ancient and her eyesight is poor. If I wear this, maybe she won't recognize me." Max squinted her eyes at herself in the mirror. "no doubt she does a better job at taming her hair."

Carefully pulling the hairpins away one by one, Callie removed the _kapp_, freeing her boss's dark curls.

"now I look like a prairie girl" Max smiles happily.

"_ya._ You should change before a delivery happens by. And we wouldn't want trent mcCallister to happen in and snap a picture of you in this dress, then splash it all over the front page of the _Shipshewana Gazzet. _ You would never hear the end of it."

Both girls turned to look at the framed photo of Max, Lily and Calvin. The words "Burglar apprehended" were printed in large letters underneath the picture and their names. Calvin padded over and pushed her head between her legs as if he understood what they were looking at.

"Those were the days right boy?" Max reached down petting Calvin's head gently. Calvin had been her aunt's dog before she died so Max had kept him. She straightens the orange bandana that was tied around his neck. "well I guess ill go change then. I like to match what calvin is wearing anyways. Its weird I know but its kinda fun also." Max smiles a goofy smile. She spun around as the front door burst open and trent stumbled in. great just great… he was wearing jeans and a Harley t-shirt and had a digital camera slung around his neck. He looked as if he belonged on the cover of a magazine and not in Shipshewana. He had his long sandy blonde hair pulled back in a pony tail and wide wire rimed glasses completed his west coast look.

His eyes widened at Max's dress but he didn't say anything about it. "im heading out to toby's place if you want to come a long. A Call came in about ten minutes ago over the police scanner."

"toby?" Max moved forward. When she did calvin moved with her on alert as if he had been called to hunt.

"is toby allright?" callie asked.

"I don't know but…" trent trailed off.

"is there anything we can do?" Max began fumbling with the back of her apron.

"Max." Trent stepped closer and placed his hand on her arm till she looked him in the eye. "lily and mary are there."

"their at toby's?" Max reached for something to sit on nearly stumbling. "but their allright"

"I don't know"

"they have to be. Tell me there's nothing wrong with lily or the children." Her hand had covered her mouth as if to stop the words that were tumbling out. "mary and amy are fine –"

"I'm not sure. Max… " Again his hazel eyes sought hers. "All I know is someone called in a fatality."


	4. Chapter 4

**Ok! So how are my first two chapters? Review review and review please! I want to know if I should keep writing or not. happy reading.**

Lily POV

Lily looked at the body of the dead girl floating face down in the pond. She was fairly certain she didn't know her but how could she be sure?

One part of her wanted to step back from the water edge look away, wait for the authorities to arrive and sort everything out.

Another part of her wanted to step forward and make sure she didn't know the teenager – the girl looked to be between sixteen and eighteen now that lily's shoes were almost in the water. She was thin in the way of girls before they had their first _Boppli, _her white apron fanning away from her green dress – it was an attractive harvest tone. The color of her dress indicated alone that she probably wasn't married yet as in most districts when woman married they started dressing in more somber colors.

Still she couldn't be sure until the officers came and turned her over. Lily had met eccentric older amish women who stubbornly preferred bright colors for their dresses – it wasn't exactly a crime. One of the officers could turn over the body to reveal a 90 year old woman who had been pulling flowers and slipped into the pond to her death.

However, if she had slipped and drowned it wouldn't account her the back of her _kapp_ which appeared to be matted with blood and hair.

Nausea squeezed lily's stomach and her breakfast inched its way up the back of her throat.

Pulse hammering she took one step closer so that her black shoe sank into the mud with the same weight that her heart dropped. The hair that had worked its way out of the prayer _kapp_ – the hair swirling around in the pond water even as fish darted back and forth near the girl – was not gray and wiry.

No this was a young teenage girl. The hands the floated near her sides showed no signs or age either.

Scrambling away from the water lily glanced back toward mary and the children. They sat near the buggy which lily had moved farther down the lane, waiting for the Shipshewana police to arrive.

Ed fisher remained with lily. He stood off to the side a bit shoulders drawn back feet planted firmly, as if he expected a big storm to appear on the far side of his fields. At five-foot-eight he was only two inches taller than she was but he was much more solid. Farming was his life. It showed in the muscles of his arms and neck.

Most days ed spent twelve to fourteen hours working in the fields and if he was kept inside because of weather he found work in the barn that he and toby had reframed into two separate spaces – a living area and a work area. Plus there was the small woodshop he had opened in the last year. The man didn't abide being idle.

This morning the look on his face remained unreadable – mouth frozen in a scowl, eyes locked on the horizon. Thirty-five years old his long sideburns were the same brown as the hair that touched the collar of his shirt. But since he had never been married he sported no beard.

For one fleeting second thought when he'd come running to the pond with her, lily thought perhaps she had saw recognition in his light brown eyes. Then any remembering had left his expression, like the shades she pulled down over her windows in the house to block out the dark night.

When she'd asked if he had know the girl ed had shaken his head once, stuffed his hands in the pockets of his work pants, and stared out over the water of the pond. He hadn't moved in the thirty minutes since.

"did they say how long it would take for them to get here?" she asked.

Ed shook his head slightly but he did not break his silence.

"did you speak to officer Ari?"

Again the headshake.

Lily had known Ed all her life. He have never been the talkative type, but even for him this silence seemed a bit ominous.

She was about to step closer to him, reach out and put a hand on his shoulder, then question him more when a Shipshewana patrol car bumped down the lane. Mary amy and jake popped up and began waving their arms. The patrol car pulled even with the buggy and rolled to a stop before rolling down his window and began talking to mary.

As lily watched the scene play out, she noticed the ed never turned. If anything the look on his face hardened.

Before she could puzzle it out, officer stan taylor opened the door the the police car and stood placing his hands on the roof of the car. After he had carefully assessed the situation, he looked toward them, looked back at her buggy, then down at the ground. Taking off his officer's hat, he put it back on the followed the path of trampled grass to the pond.

Taylor easily fit into the small amish community oh Shipshewana. In fact, if lily remembered correctly, he had been born there. Old enough to be a grandfather himself each year lily expected him to retire but he didn't.

A captain of their six-man department he seemed to enjoy watching over Shipshewana and tending to any little needs their small community.

Needs like dead girls in a pond.


	5. Chapter 5

**My dog was hit by a bus two nights ago but I just found out today so I might be going slower… **

**Sooo how are you liking it so far? Ill be adding fang in either this chapter or the next but he will come in. **

As taylor neared lily saw his concern. She wouldn't have been surprised if he had pulled her into a hug. Instead he put his hand on the end of his pistol, which remained holstered in his belt.

"are you alright lily?" he asks.

"_Ya, ya _i'm fine." She couldn't stop herself from sending a worried look eds way. "I didn't actually find the girl; mary did."

"I spoke with her a minute. She seams shaken but ok." Taylor crouched down and looked at the body floating a few feet away. "Ed any idea what happened here?"

The big man turned now and lily had the oddest sensation that he'd been preparing himself for this moment which was a ridiculous idea unless he was hiding something. Of all the people she knew ed was the most forthcoming. He worked and he worked. There was little else in his life and she couldn't remember a time when there had been.

Of course he visited his family on Sundays but other than that he didn't even like leaving the farm.

"no" ed said.

Taylor stood and backed away from the girl. Lily understood enough about murder scene's to realize that he didn't want to disturb any evidence. Pulling out his pad and pen he turned to her.

"you found her first?"

Lily knew taylor was testing her story since she had just told him who had found the body. She shook her head a repeated what she had just said. "no mary did. We were driving up with a casserole and we'd stoped to pick some flowers. Mary and the children went to go pick them and I stayed with the buggy."

"you had no indication that something was wrong?"

Lily smoothed down her apron and looked back at the _kinner_. "actually pepper was acting a bit _Naerfich. _I thought there might be a snake near by or something. "

"alright. So mary had been here with the kids – "

"maybe five minutes and then I heard her scream."

"and then what happened?"

Lily felt Ed studying her as closely as Taylor was. She closed her eyes and allowed the scene to replay in her mind. She knew the first time she told this story it would be the most accurate, as each of retelling of a story tended to stray farther from the truth.

She had heard Max say so, based on the Agatha Christy books she reads but didn't lily know it from experience with her own children?

Pulling in a deep breath she pushed on. "I ran down the path thinking one of the _kinner _might be hurt. But Amy was clutching Mary's hand it it was Mary who had screamed. Jake had plopped down on his bottom in the grass. "

Her pulse began to accelerate as she allowed her mind to drift back over the scene. Even thought she was standing next to the girls body right now, telling of its discovery seemed somehow to make it more urgent.

Why was that?

"and then?" taylor didn't step closer. His voice was calm, focused, recording the facts that would begin to lead them down the path to discovering the cause of this girls fate.

"mary had one hand over her mouth, the other hand holding Amy's. When I arrived by the water, she pointed toward the pond, so I followed her gaze. I thought maybe she had found a dead animal or… or, I don't know what. I never thought it would be a person… a girl."

Spiders tiptoed down her spine as she voiced the thought she had been holding back. "What if she's someone we know?"

"we'll find out soon enough." Taylor said his voice grim. "so are these mary's footprints?"

He pointed at the in the mud leading down to the body.

"No." lily felt heat creep up her face. "I steped a bit closer to see if I recognized the girl. I'm sorry if I messed up your crime scene. "

"don't worry about it. You had a natural reaction to be concerned about the girl. Looks to me like the grass was trampled down on this side by mary and the kids but we'll have the crime techs check their shoe sizes to confirm that. I noticed a wider path going around on the other side –"

"_ya _it looks as if someone dragged something through the weeds. "

Taylor paused, his eyes assessing her solemnly. "you didn't walk that way at all?"

"No I stayed here on this side…"

"should be able to collect some forensic evidence then. I suspect whoever dropped her off at this sight – or killed her here – did so from the ponds other side and she floated to this side."

"Floated?" lily reached for the strings of her prayer _kapp_ and ran her fingers down the length of them.

"we're on the south side," taylor said. "the wind has been from the north for several days." He studied the scene before him a moment longer then looked down at his pad. "the county should be here in a few minutes. Lets finish up with your initial statement. After you determined it was a person what did you do?"

Lily tugged on her prayer _kapp_ and looked back towards jake. He was running in circles around mary, playing with a long reed of grass. Soon he'd be finding something to put in his mouth that he shouldn't. "I insisted they come away, come back away from the water and the flowers. I didn't want the kinner to realize what they were seeing and grow upset. I pulled mary and the kinner down the path to the buggy then moved it farther down the lane."

Lily peaked around taylor's uniformed shoulders to catch another glimpse of the group still waiting for her.

"why did you move the buggy lily?"

"what?" she looked back at taylor.

"The buggy? It was originally parked here, right?" He pointed to a spot about 100 feet away from where mary and the kinner were now standing. The same spot he had stoped to examine earlier. "Why did you move it farther away? The children couldn't see the body from where you had been parked so why did you move it?"

Lily smiled, remembering what Max had told her about an investigators attention to details. "Pepper was nervous, spooked from the moment we stoped. Once mary and the kinner came back to the buggy pepper seemed even more agitated. You might like it sounds Narrisch, but I belive she smelt death in the air. I wanted to move her so she would calm down. "

Taylor rubbed a finger across his white bushy eyebrow as he considered her reasoning. After a moment he seemed to accept it and wrote an additional notation on his pad.

"and then?"

"Mary stayed with the kinner and the buggy – where she is right now – and I ran to Eds house. He took his buggy to the phone shack and called you. Turning his attention to ed, taylor mumbled "alright. That's all for the moment, but I still need to take a full statement from Mary. And I'll want you to stay around in case I have anymore questions."

"the children –"

"I asked the dispatcher to send someone to your house when ed mentioned you were here. Jonas should be here any minute now. "

As if his words had the power to produce the people she loved, a buggy and a truck pulled down the lane.

Lily turned and hurried towards them, already feeling Jonas's arms around her, his dark eyes reassuring her all would be fine. But something caused her to look back. When she did something surprised her almost as much as the dead corpse.

Ed had turned ready to face taylors questioning, and for a fleeting moment, lily saw a look on his face. It was one she was familiar with. One she had felt often enough when she had miscut a bolt of cloth or spoken to harshly to one of the children.

Eds look, was tinged with such pain, colored with such heartache, that lily's hand went instinctively to her throat.

It might had been for one brief second when his thoughts were unguarded, might have been something that officer stan taylor had missed as he looked down at his pad to begin a new page of notes, but lily clearly saw how Eds expression was temporarily consumed by regret.

**ok so thats the end of chapter 5 for you! dont for get to review in the little box below! :D **


	6. Chapter 6

**Well not much to say other than here is chapter 6! :D **

Sam watched the _Englischers _from his hiding spot in the woods. He'd known the moment the taller woman started around the south side of the pond she's find esthers body. If he was honest with himself he had prayed for it. The thought of her spending one more hour in the waterwould have split his heart right in two – if there was anything left of his heart to split.

He clutched the brim of his hat so tightly he could feel it breaking under his fingers.

It didn't matter.

Nothing mattered now.

Crawling forward on his belly he inched toward the top of the slope he was lying against so he could peer more closely at the group of people gathering around the pond. There were two women who had arrived an hour before, their kinner, ed, and the _Englischer_s. One of the _Englischers _was the local police officer – sam knew that from the automobile he had arrived in as well as the uniform the man was wearing. Another who seemed to be from the local newspaper. The lardge magnet of the side of his truck read "_Shipshewana Gazette." _ The truck itself looked as if it had seen better days, even to sam who wasn't so familiar with the _englisch _automobiles.

This man held something up and pointed towards esthers body, but it wasn't until the sunshine of the fall day reflected off the lens that sam realized it was a camera, and he understood that the man was taking pictures of her, photographing her body.

Sam backed quickly down the hill and tried to stand but he triped over his bag of things and fell on top of esthers duffle. Crawling on his hands and knees in the opposite direction – any direction from the scene at the pond – he forgot to quiet his movements. Sweat slicked his palms causing leaves to stick to them as he lunged forward like a child. And he might had continued that way, crawling clear out of LaGrange County and leaving their small bundle of things behind if his stomach hadn't stopped him near the creak.

After no more than five – maybe six – feet of crawling, sam gasped, clutched one arm around his middle, and started retching. He haddn't eaten but the little bit of water he had drank a few hours earlier found its way up. Mostly it was dry heaving – his body looking for something to expunge but finding very little.

His heart looking for a way a reject the final travesty of what he had seen.

After two minutes he was done, though sweat now beaded along his forehead, and he had lost his hat somewhere along the way.

Wiping the back of his arm across his mouth he collapsed into a sitting position while searching for his hat. Tears again coursed down his cheeks and through his beard that was less than a week old.

He scratched at the stubble and then he was lost, his mind drifting back to three weeks ago when esther had reached up and touched his cheek that was still smooth and teased him about how quickly his beard would come in…

" _within a month of our wedding you will need a comb to keep a proper." Her palm lingered on his cheek, her brown eyes sparkling with laughter. When she did pull her hand away, it was to twine her fingers in his and tug him toward the barns. "you promised you would help me name the pups today."_

"_pups don't need naming esther. They are only hounds." _

"_you sound like my _dat_. I want to name them even if we are selling them soon. Seems the kind of thing to do – assigning name to something that you have to feed and care for. "_

"_next you will be naming the cattle." Now he was teasing he, though he didn't mind following her into the barn. He'd worked all day in her father's fields, and passing a half hour in the barn, looking at her pretty face, seemed a fair price to pay for naming a few hound dogs. _

_Though she wore one of her dark gray work dresses, she'd starched her white apron that covered it. Her light brown hair was pulled back proberly and tucked under her white prayer _kapp_ but nothing could hide the prettiness of her face. Esther was the most beautiful girl sam had ever seen, though that wasn't why he had lost his heart to her. It was her kindness, the way she cared for every living thing – even a few hounds that would be gone soon._

"_course I wouldn't name cattle! Cows don't crawl up in your lap and lick your hand._

"gut _thing" Sam muttered._

_Esther stepped closer as they moved into the shelter of the barn. "when we have our own place, I'd like to have a pup. Their _gut _for warning off snakes and also if someone approaches who shouldn't be about."_

"_any what stranger would be approaching here? You family lives so far out, visitors are rarer than snow in septemper." Sam tried to hold back the criticism from his voice, but wasn't quite successful. He didn't realize he might have sounded a bit harsh till she turned to him her face now solem. "I didn't mean to judge esther." He said his voice now soft._

_Glancing to the right then the left esther pulled sam into the last stall. The dog and her pups lay in a shaft of light in a corner on top of a pile of hay, but esther ignored them, her attention focused completely on him. _

"_does it bother you so much Sam? Be honest with me. Do you regret working for my father?"_

"_how could I regret it, when I wouldn't have grown so close to you otherwise?"_

"_it was _gotte's wille ya?"

"Ya, _I belive it was."_

"_but now –" _

" _now I wonder if perhaps we should stay here after we mary or – "_

"_or move off on our own. Move north to Shipshewana, where you can work in the RV factories. " she crossed over to the pups, selected the smallest, and picked it up cuddling it close. _

"_its what I said before. Here the work is endless, and I'm not sure we'll ever make enough to get ahead. Look at how your father struggles. hasn't even been a time to begin building our own house, though he promised. "_

"_I know he did but the summer crops – "_

"_I understand his reasons Esther. I understand." Sam was running his hand up and down his jawline, trying to puzzle out all the emotions and conflicting thoughts running through his mind, when Esther stepped closer to him and cupped her hand over his. _

"_it will grow nice and thick Sam. I can tell. Might not even take a month. Then you'll be needing a comb." _


	7. Chapter 7

**Im sorry but fang wont come in till a few more chapters yet but ill be using Max more after this chapter. Sorry about that ppls.**

Ed POV

Ed watched lily walk away. Watched her walk towards Jonas, Mary, and her _englisch _friends trent and Max.

Jonas wrapped his arms around her; then Mary and the children joined the circle. Almost immediately Max Harper was pulled into their midst's, and though Trent McCallister stood on the outside, soon he too, was shaking hands with Jonas and tussling the _bopplins _hair, and lightly touching Lily's and Mary's arms.

Good people everyone of them. Ed hadn't been much help when Lily was trying to clear the _englisch _woman's name in a murder investigation last summer. Seemed ironic now. One thing he could bet the crops in his east field on – if lily yoder said a person was honest and true, it was a fact.

Pulling in a deep breath he forced his attention to the officer who stood waiting.

He didn't allow himself to stare into the water.

Wouldn't let himself look at Esther.

Though part of him needed to.

"are there any corrections you would like to make to Lily's statement?"

"No."

"Do you know who the girl in the water is Mr. Fisher?"

He didn't answer that one. Ed knew who captain Stan Taylor was. In a town as small as Shipshewana you came to know everyone's name fairly quickly and they had both lived as long as either could remember. After a long silence officer taylor hitched up his pants and let out a long sigh before moving on to the next question. Ed had seen taylor around town plenty of times. Never had a cause to speak to him before. Never had a cause to like or dislike him.

"any idea how she came to be in your pond?" taylor asked.

Ed shook his head.

Another police car pulled up behind the truck that had brought Trent and Max.

Eds jaw began to ache from clenching it.

Taylor snapped his pad shut. "We're not making any progress with my questions. How about you tell me what you know."

Until that moment Ed had avoided looking right at the _Englischer, _but now he sensed a challenge in the mans words. He forced himself not to move, not to react physically in any way. That was easy enough after the years of practicing _Gelassenheit. _but of course this wasn't a normal situation and he didn't feeling anything close to calm or composed.

Was the girls death _gotte's wille?_

Hard to imagine.

Didn't mean he'd be willing to work with the _Englischer _though.

"Well?" Officer Taylor asked. "do you have anything to add? "

Ed met his gaze not trying to hide his contempt. "No."

Taylor stepped closer, close enough that Ed could small the man's sweat. He remembered that this man had once worked in the _englisch _prisons, and had been a supervisor of sorts there. Toby had told him about it. Taylor herded people in concrete jails at the county facility on the outskirts of town. He'd heard it was only for women and minor offences at that, but the thought still turned his stomach. In other words, he was as foreign to ed as the scene folding out before him right this minute.

"A dead girl shows up in your pond less than a mile from your front door and you don't see or hear a thing? A might believe that of a woman who was working in the home or garden, or a man who is a bit slovenly or absentminded." Taylor stepped back as the other officers approached but didn't stop speaking. "but from the looks of your farm Mr. Fisher, your aware of everything that happens in every field. I don't quite believe that someone killed and dumped a girl and you didn't know about it."

Taylor turned and walked away, towards the other officer, leaving Ed by the pond with Esther.

For the first time in many years, Ed no longer felt distanced from other people – separate as tho he were watching from the outside.

No standing by the water, unable to turn and look at the girl who still hadn't been fetched, who couldn't yet be promply buried, he felt completely involved in life – involved in a way that made his heart ache all the way to the marrow in his bones. An ache that spoke to the regret of the things that he had done in the last 48 hours, the decisions he had made.

Decisions that couldn't be changed.

Not now.

Not ever.

Though he was large, though he felt the strength he'd always known running through his muscles, Ed was sure that his heart had been shattered in two.

**Sorry this was a shorter chapter! I think I might bring fang in to the book in the next chapter. **


End file.
